A lecturer (Tara Brabazon, here the Wikipedia entry) from the University of Brighton has banned her students from researching their essays on Google and Wikipedia, dubbing the phenomenon ‘The University of Google’ (Book from her). Speaking to the Brighton Argus newspaper Professor Tara Brabazon said thousands of students across the country, including those at the universities of Brighton and Sussex, were churning out banal and mediocre work by using what search engines provided them:

The education world has pursued new technology with an almost evangelical zeal and it is time to take a step back and give proper consideration of how we use it.

Too many students don’t use their own brains enough. We need to bring back the important values of research and analysis.

People have to pay to come to university now and what they are paying for is the knowledge, experience and guidance of people like myself.

There is a school of thinking that it should be about them directing their own learning but I think giving guidance is crucial.

I ban my students from using Google, Wikipedia and other websites like that. I give them a reading list to work from and expect them to cite a good number of them in any work they produce.

I want students to sit down and read. It’s not the same when you read it online. I want them to experience the pages and the print as much as the digitisation and the pixels. Both are fine but I want them to have both, not one or the other, not a cheap solution.

I think she’s right about the points mentiont from her above, which adresses higher education nowadays in our embraced new information age. I skipped through her stunning CV - and in terms of historical evidence (i think) - we can’t let print die (btw some parts will die, some will continue to thrive for their existence … here).

Lectures should address this issue of the reading list vs. search engine. I am sure to get a glibs about a topic, Wikipedia and other digital resources arn’t wrong. But to rely only on digital resources (in your essay, study) which are not from an academic background - isn’t the purpose of visiting university and finishing after 3 years with a BSc. Again: …

There is a school of thinking that it should be about them directing their own learning but I think giving guidance is crucial.

We need to bring back the important values of research and analysis.

Jenny wrote:

How ridiculous! I’m a non-fiction author and use google all the time as a starting point for research. I also use books and primary sources but google is a vital resource and shouldn’t be banned as long as the students also know how to do hard copy research.

Luke wrote:

… the issue here just demonstrates a failure on the part of the university to teach their students how to evaluate and compare sources to ensure their accuracy.

Ahmed Ibrahim:

Academics should be embracing the technology of the internet as other sources of reliable information, and thus should be awarded the credit due for the extra time taken to research a genuine not often published in textbooks but published often through Google Scholar.

Sean:

The whole point is that journals books and so forth go under review. Any pleb can claim to be an expert and post information on a website.

Is it Gutenberg vs. Wikipedia/Google Scholar/Internet?

I think the the issue which arises by using any internet source or Wikipedia entry to back your essay/thesis is that the internet/Wikipedia entry might not be as much credential/backing like any academic book/paper.

Surely - Tara Brabazon is really worried about Libraries and their future.

Through education, we can make a difference. Through teaching, we recognise what we need to learn. But without libraries and librarians, we lose a way of thinking.

The revolution will not be shushed: guerrilla librarians fight for literacy

But to turn down new ways of research without no sign of tolerance or accompanying style is way too much. The other point of the whole story is when we look at the work of the Wikimedia Foundation and Google and CO.. There is a lot of hard work ahead to show and convince the old guild ( eg. pre- and post-Gutenberg) that the internet isn’t evil and doesn’t mean the destruction of literacy, intelligence and academia work. They have to work on that to have something like an academic flavour and spread it with nice PR and word-of-mouth marketing.

General Q: How do YOU show the others what we are doing and how it makes the world better?